Food is Your Best Medicine

Henry G. Bieler, M.D. (1965). bookcode=020111 New York: Random House.
†The following is a review of this classic work by Steve Solomon
on his web site at -Food Is Your Best Medicine

"Here find one complete chapter and the front matter. There is
only this small sample of the full text online because an inexpensived
Random House paperback edition is currently available. Bieler,
a disciple of John Tilden, was the last well-known fully-accredited M.D.
that I am aware of who practiced hygienic medicine entirely without
reliance on drugs or surgery and who wrote lucidly about his practice.
Bieler's origin, through "modern" training and standard medical
orientation gives his book a uniquely authoritative and up-to-date
theoretical stance that Tilden can seem to lack. Dr. Moser gave dozens
of copies of paperback copies Bieler's book to her clients. Everyone
interested in natural medicine should own and read one. "Food Is Your
Best Medicine" is on my "read every five years list." Every time I do reread
it I find new and amazing insights I was too stupid to realize were present
the time I last read it."

IN PRINT, ONE CHAPTER SAMPLE ONLY. To access
once chapter, on Steve's site, go to the following link for the download information-
Food Is Your Best Medicine
____________

To give you an idea of what the book is like, and hopefully
interest you in obtaining a copy and reading it, a couple of excerpts from
the first portions of the book are presented here. Copies of the paperback
version sell for $7.00 or less and are usually available from online distributors
like Amazon.com.

FOOD IS YOUR BEST MEDICINE
HENRY G. BIELER, M.D.

Introduction

"When I was a medical school student in the early days of the century,
the study of nutrition was very sketchy; even today most doctors are
painfully ignorant of the real advances in nutritional science. I began
to suspect the close relationship between health and proper eating
habits when, early in my career as an overworked young doctor,
my own health broke down. I have always been a man of great curiosity
and as I investigated deeply the chemistry of food along new lines,
I came to the conclusion that I, personally, must give up the use of drugs
and henceforth rely solely on food as my medicine. It wasn't long until
(after repeated verified results) I discarded drugs in treating my patients.

"My colleagues, at the time, thought I had lost my mind. But time has only
strengthened my belief.

"Today we are not only in the Atomic Age but also the Antibiotic Age.
Unhappily, too, this is the Dark Age of Medicine--an age in which many
of my colleagues, when confronted with a patient, consult a volume which
rivals the Manhattan telephone directory in size. This book contains
the names of thousands upon thousands of drugs used to alleviate
the distressing symptoms of a host of diseased states of the body.
The doctor then decides which pink or purple or baby-blue pill to prescribe
for the patient.

"This is not, in my opinion, the practice of medicine.

"Far too many of these new "miracle" drugs are introduced with fanfare
and then revealed as lethal in character, to be silently discarded for newer
and more powerful drugs, which allegedly cure all the ills to which the flesh
is heir.

"I discarded drugs partly because I began to re-examine an old, old medical
truism--that nature does the real healing, utilizing the natural defenses of
the body. Under the proper conditions nature, if given the opportunity, is
always the greatest healer. It is the physician's role to assist in this healing-to
co-operate with nature's forces; to play a supporting role instead of star of
the show. Nature does not follow Madison Avenue's "Feel Better Faster" but
takes her time, slowly, as a tree grows, a little more each day. Nature never
rushes to get a sick man or beast on his feet; she also demands a slow and
steady convalescence. Sick animals rest or sleep and refuse all food until
nature has healed them.

"Isn't it proper, then, to expect that nature can do the same thing for the sick
human if only she is given the opportunity?

"Because I believe this so deeply, I have been in disagreement with doctors
who stuff the sick, exhausted man with powerful toxic drugs and then are
forced to use other drugs to "remedy the remedy," as it were. Instead I "fast"
the patient on simple vegetable broths or diluted fruit juices in order to give the exhausted body organs an opportunity to discharge their waste products
and heal themselves.

"Call me "controversial" if you will; I have taken the revered Louis Pasteur off
his pedestal. Years of laboratory observation and experimentation have
taught me that germs do not cause disease. Germs are merely a concomitant
of disease, present in every sick individual but able to multiply in a sick person
because of disturbed function.

"Every new concept developed in medical science points the way to a new area
awaiting further exploration. Discarding both the use of drugs and the germ
theory of disease opened the way for me to explore new methods of
eliminating the stagnating waste products from the body. Briefly stated, my
position is: improper foods cause disease; proper foods cure disease. In
upholding this thesis, I have been in disagreement, at times sharp, with
organized orthodox medicine.

"While seeking additional methods to aid in this elimination of toxins, I
began a study along original lines, here and in Europe, of just how I could use the endocrine glands, particularly the liver, adrenal, thyroid and pituitary
glands. From there, my medical curiosity led me to a study of the harm done
to the body by various stimulating foods and non-foods, such as salt.

"The average American predilection for doughnuts and coffee, hot dogs with
mustard, ice cream, fried meat, French-fried potatoes, pie # la mode, together
with between-meal sweetened cola drinks, candy bars and coffee breaks,
synthetic vitamins and aspirin cannot make for health. And they cannot make
for a pure cholesterol. Long before cholesterol became a household word I was
interested in its role in the body. Here you will find a unique approach to
the cholesterol problem and also how to build a pure cholesterol which wears
well in the arteries.

"In these pages you will discover which foods are helpful and which harmful and how the body reacts to both in health and in illness. You will notice that, though
there are suggestions about eating or not eating (for when not to eat is often
more important than what to eat), there is no cure-all diet suggested for
whatever ails you.

"As a child of four back in Cincinnati, Ohio, I announced to my parents one day that I wanted to be a doctor. For over fifty years now I have been a doctor--
not a specialist, merely a general practitioner. I have treated motion picture
stars and coal miners; politicians and professional men; farmers and Pasadena
society dowagers; I have brought thousands of healthy babies into the world,
including my own children and grandchildren. A decade ago, I thought I might
retire and devote myself to my hobbies--music, reading, sculpture, mountain
climbing and wild animal study--so I closed my Pasadena office and built a
glass-walled house on a sea Cliff, high above the sun-warmed Pacific. But
patients from near and far (even from abroad) sought me out in a steady
stream seven days a week, to learn how proper food, individually selected
for their particular ills, will cure them. If I have helped them back to health,
I am well rewarded, for in the process I have become not only a counselor
but a friend.

Henry G. Bieler, M.D.
Capistrano Beach, 1965
_________

Contents

INTRODUCTION
PART 1. THE MAGNIFICENT HUMAN BODY
1 The Cure Is Worse than the Disease
2 Your Body: A Do It Yourself Repair Shop
3 Disease Has Many Faces
4 Cornerstones in My House of Health
5 Digestion: First Line of Defense Against Disease
6 The Liver: Second Line of Defense Against Disease
7 The Endocrine Glands: Third Line of Defense Against Disease
8 You--Under the Doctor's Eye
PART II. WHEN THE MAGNIFICENT HUMAN BODY
BREAKS DOWN
9 When Disease Strikes Children
10 Cholesterol and the Troubled Heart
11 Defects in Kidneys and Blood Pressure
12 Your Weight: Too High or Too Low?
13 From Appendicitis to Women's Ailments
PART III. FOOD IS YOUR BEST MEDICINE
14 Proteins Are Body Builders
15 Proteins Can Be Body Killers
16 Vegetables as Do It Yourself Therapy
17 Milk and Yeast as Food and Medicine
18 Salt and Stimulation vs. the Good Diet

236 pages.
____________________

We hope you enjoyed this Newsletter and will find it useful.
____________________